Thursday, October 29, 2009
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
A Room of Her Own
When Judy, Nancy and I moved into the house on B Street, Judy chose the lovely bedroom with pearl-grey walls and white trim off the living room. Nancy wanted the attic with its cute coves and crannies. We all agreed she should also have the room below the attic for her art room.
I pulled the short straw -- the oddly shaped room next to the refrigerator whose walls are covered, floor to ceiling, in big bunches of bright purple pansies and yellow daffodils tied together in ribbon-laced nosegays. THOUSANDS of ribbon-laced nosegays. Who even knows what a nosegay is anymore?! We are only leasing the house so ripping the wallpaper off or painting over it is not an option.
"But your room comes with a bathroom," says Judy every time I complain about the pansies. And she's right, it does. Complete with bidet. (I'll save the bidet story for another day.) But, alas, Judy decided early on that she would take her morning shower in the bathroom off my bedroom instead of in the bathroom that is exactly next to her bedroom and connected to it by a door two inches from her bed.
Judy, as you will recall, is an intensive care nurse. She works 12-hour shifts that start at 7 a.m., but for some reason require that she be at the hospital at 6:30. So every morning at 5:30, she opens my bedroom door, clatterbangs it shut and jiggles the handle about a hundred times, walks through my room in the dark crashing into any number of things. Same story on her way out, except -- it's now 5:50 a.m. -- she occasionally says something in a really loud voice like, "ARE YOU AWAKE?" Or, "I HOPE I DIDN'T WAKE YOU." Which, of course, wakes me and makes me want to hit her.
But I digress.
I am a writer with a large and looming project that requires more space to spread out files and papers than I have where I usually work, which is the entry space between the front porch and the living room that we lovingly call The Library. I needed to find a quiet, untrafficked retreat for three months with plenty of space where I would not be disturbed.
Judy and Nancy suggested the Peace Chapel in our backyard where we, and some of the 62 practitioners Judy and I have trained, provide free healing touch treatments each Thursday for people in the community. A perfect space, to be sure. When Sue Harmon offered to provide a temporary home for the Thursday clinic it all came together.
I bought a put-it-together-yourself desk, and a put-it-together-yourself bookcase, and a put-it-together yourself armoire affair which Judy offered to put together herself -- with help from Nancy -- and ultimately from Ron Little, the construction genius, cheered on by his wife Claudia and family friend Paul.
I moved the massage table to the garage, along with the altar and the woowoo music and the art and the candles and the throw pillows that said "Peace." I moved in my books and research notes and inspirational ephemera (don't you love the word ephemera?!) and my big, beautiful black leather desk chair, and my trusty eight-year-old HP laptop.
Whereupon my laptop stopped functioning. Not completely, mind you, just enough to make me TOTALLY CRAZY. My 15-year-old desktop in the library was in even more precarious shape.
Clearly, I needed a new computer before I could begin work in my new office on my looming project.
Nancy and I spent two hours at Connecting Point in Medford yesterday talking to a lovely chap named Justin about the merits of the Macbook Pro. And another hour at Staples talking to a revved up version of Justin about the merits of the new Windows 7.
Nancy, Judy and I spent another two hours in Medford today reprising yesterday's conversation with the Staples guy who speaks at approximately 10,000 words a minute. I returned home with a raging headache but no new computer. I am writing this blog on my half-functional laptop that kicks me off the internet every four minutes. I am not happy. I am not working on my huge project. And, let it be known, that at 3:27 p.m., I am drinking wine.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Teachers
I'm sitting in front of a log fire (well, okay, gas-log fire) in a beautiful little chalet nestled among cedar, Douglas fir, Ponderosa pine and giant live oak trees at Mount Shasta. Barely 20 yards from my deck is Lake Siskiyou, sparkling green and blue and gold on this exquisite fall afternoon. I come here as often as I can -- it's my place for pondering. At this very moment the focus of my pondering is a couple I met last weekend.
Judy and I taught full-day, back-to-back, energy healing classes on Saturday and Sunday. The couple I want to tell you about borrowed a car and drove two days from Vancouver Island, British Columbia to Ashland in order to take the classes.
Janett and Jerry have lived on a deserted stretch of Vancouver Island coast at the mouth of Juan de Fuca Strait for the last thirty years. Jerry is with the Canadian Coast Guard (non-military in Canada). Janett is an astronomer. There are three houses in their little "community" -- the one they live in, one occupied by a single man who tends the lighthouse, and a mostly unoccupied guest house for Coast Guard visitors.
Groceries are brought in once a month by helicopter. Mail is delivered once a week, weather permitting. In the summer the way out (or in) is by boat or hiking the Pacific Coast Trail for three days. In winter there's no way in or out at all except by helicopter.
"But what if you forget to put something really important on your grocery list?" I asked.
"We wait a month," Jerry said.
"But what if you get sick or have an accident?" I asked.
"They try hard to get the helicopter to you before you die," Janett said.
THIRTY YEARS! They've been there for THIRTY YEARS!! They raised and home-schooled two children there. And it was only two years ago that they got hooked up to satellite TV and internet.
Just thinking about living so far from civilization with the same person for thirty years made me twitch and blink and muffle a scream. No friends, no movie theaters, no restaurants or wine bars. No Safeway or Albertsons or Rite-Aid or Ace Hardware. No Starbucks or Macy's or Shakespeare Festival or Halloween parade or football games. No New York Times. No Co-op. No car!
In short, NO DIVERSIONS.
"We have the ocean," they said. "And the whales and the trees and the clouds and the stars and the creatures. We have our books and the labyrinth we made with paths of grass. . . and we have each other."
That, I learned, was the key. These two remarkable people who were friends before they were lovers, have something I've certainly never known in my life. They have such an enormous appreciation and respect for nature and such an enormous appreciation and respect for each other that their egos seem to have melted away.
"Janett sees and hears only truth," Jerry said.
"Jerry is so gentle and patient," Janett said.
They came to Ashland to learn, not teach. But teach they did. And I, for one, will never be the same.
Judy and I taught full-day, back-to-back, energy healing classes on Saturday and Sunday. The couple I want to tell you about borrowed a car and drove two days from Vancouver Island, British Columbia to Ashland in order to take the classes.
Janett and Jerry have lived on a deserted stretch of Vancouver Island coast at the mouth of Juan de Fuca Strait for the last thirty years. Jerry is with the Canadian Coast Guard (non-military in Canada). Janett is an astronomer. There are three houses in their little "community" -- the one they live in, one occupied by a single man who tends the lighthouse, and a mostly unoccupied guest house for Coast Guard visitors.
Groceries are brought in once a month by helicopter. Mail is delivered once a week, weather permitting. In the summer the way out (or in) is by boat or hiking the Pacific Coast Trail for three days. In winter there's no way in or out at all except by helicopter.
"But what if you forget to put something really important on your grocery list?" I asked.
"We wait a month," Jerry said.
"But what if you get sick or have an accident?" I asked.
"They try hard to get the helicopter to you before you die," Janett said.
THIRTY YEARS! They've been there for THIRTY YEARS!! They raised and home-schooled two children there. And it was only two years ago that they got hooked up to satellite TV and internet.
Just thinking about living so far from civilization with the same person for thirty years made me twitch and blink and muffle a scream. No friends, no movie theaters, no restaurants or wine bars. No Safeway or Albertsons or Rite-Aid or Ace Hardware. No Starbucks or Macy's or Shakespeare Festival or Halloween parade or football games. No New York Times. No Co-op. No car!
In short, NO DIVERSIONS.
"We have the ocean," they said. "And the whales and the trees and the clouds and the stars and the creatures. We have our books and the labyrinth we made with paths of grass. . . and we have each other."
That, I learned, was the key. These two remarkable people who were friends before they were lovers, have something I've certainly never known in my life. They have such an enormous appreciation and respect for nature and such an enormous appreciation and respect for each other that their egos seem to have melted away.
"Janett sees and hears only truth," Jerry said.
"Jerry is so gentle and patient," Janett said.
They came to Ashland to learn, not teach. But teach they did. And I, for one, will never be the same.
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